I’m not enough of an expert to interpret the dog study etc., but from the abstract of the last article you linked (Lactate as a fulcrum of metabolism, Brooks 2020): “By inhibiting … muscle mitochondrial fatty acid uptake via malonyl-CoA and CPT1, lactate controls energy substrate partitioning.”
Yesterday I listened to a Peter Attia podcast with Brooks, and there he said that this inhibition lasts for about 30 mins.
how many hours are you riding in a week?
I can only speak from personal experience, having ridden about 10 years or so. Some years I averaged 5 hours/week for the year, and some years I pushed it as high as averaging 8 hours/week for the year. Clearly not elite level volumes.
My biggest aerobic engines were built with completely opposite training:
Same FTP both years, same absolute vo2max (wko5 & intervals estimates). Seasons separated by 6 years.
What I believe:
Both resulted in personal bests in FTP and estimated (WKO) absolute VO2max. In other words, I ended up in the same place from an aerobic engine point-of-view. But very different approaches. All that threshold work resulted in several personal best 100 mile efforts at ~0.85 IF with 60g/hour fueling (ftp around 275W).
There is a great picture in this paper: Adaptations to Endurance and Strength Training - PMC
Both HIIT and higher volume long-steady distance (endurance) should result in more “Engines” while sprint interval training and HIIT make the Engines more functional (produce more power).
All that said, right now I’m in a similar situation as you.
When riding in the hills I don’t worry about “keeping it in zone2” and I don’t worry about freewheeling downhill.
Show up, do some work, mix it up, and get faster.
Did Brooks say to what intensity and duration this “inhibition” begins?
I wonder how “impermeable” these so-called energy partitions are. I’d assume they act like a dynamic sieve, of sorts.
Anyways, thanks for the info. I have a flight to Oahu later, so I’ll have to catch up on Attia’s podcast.
Load these up:
Find this Inside Exercise on your podcast app, this link takes you straight to “Does lactate inhibit fat oxidation” segment:
and this one “for the Twitter zone2 mania” crowd:
Inside Exercise is filled with other podcast episodes that are worthy of your time. Straight up science without zone2 hype & mysticism.
Enjoy.
I concur WW…
I’ve been following KM and his principles for a couple of years with success… i’m on the way down but my cycling numbers are going up.
Thanks for the links! I’ll give them a listen.
Similar but I hired a coach to help me with endurance focused + tempo/threshold/HIIT in order to achieve consistency. My numbers went up on relatively low volume - peaking at 7.6 hrs/week.
In many respects its like reading Dan John’s Easy Strength Omnibook - consistently showing up and not overdoing it? Simple, not easy.
Inside Exercise is filled with top researchers giving clear evidence or opinions based on strong enough evidence. Love Empirical Cycling too, for different reasons.
Hi WW, i know you from TR btw (I got banned)… I know your story/threads.
I had been meaning to read listen to this podcast. Not sure how I became aware of it. Very recent information I will say covers what is known.
Starts out perhaps a bit slow but very, very quickly ramps up. By the very end I felt I had a very good understanding, as well as someone who isn’t a biochemist could have anyway. At least I am not illiterate. I liked the presentation because I am able to see forest despite the trees. Oft times conversations and especially studies are so narrowly focused.
If I remember one thing from this years from now, it will be that all systems, aerobic and anaerobic, are engaged at all times.
@JV_Dobboy i totally agree with you. Zone 2 was never intended to be an end to a means. Dr. David Seiler, who certainly has cred to discuss Zone 2, made a comment that he was surprised at how Zone 2 was being used. Zone 2 was always intended to be a prescription for someone who had the time to do more hours of training, beyond what they could tolerate with more demanding sessions. Time in the saddle is important and useful even if it isn’t very hard.
This year I stopped caring about being in strict Z2 power or HR zone, it lets me prioritize volume and riding where ever I want. If I’m up in FTP for a couple minutes on an endurance ride on a climb, I don’t care.
I started riding again after 5 years of not riding and after 3.5 months I’m almost as fit as I’ve ever been, I believe these mixed Z2/Z3 rides of 3 to 3.5 hours are what got me there. I factor in more rest when doing this, so basically every other day of these rides.
There are lots of gearing options available these days that can give you very low gearing. I have 11-42 with a 46/30 on one bike, this keeps me under 200w at about 70rpm on 10%+ grades, a bit grindy, but not too bad.
The fact is widely recognised and derived from measurements of sugar concentrations. However, for a more notable reference, I suggest checking out the interview with Dr. Iñigo San Millán, who is the head performance coach at Visma and previously coached Tadej Pogacar. He gave several interviews mentioning this, so I quickly found this one (scroll to 22m:05s).
Just in case the link does not work:
GCN: One thing you said last time, and I am surprised, if you are doing Zone 2 ride and you do a hard effort, it can then take your body up to 30 minutes to sort of recover and come back to Zone 2. How hard that effort is going to be in order for you to lose the Zone 2?
San Millán: (answering)
From personal experience living in foothills, I had to eat humble pie and gear down (52/36 to 48/30) to stay well within Z2 (Lactate Threshold 1). I was going out riding in Z2 heart rate but the power would be in Z3-5. So my rides were nowhere near a Z1-2 ride.
Since then I found some flat(ter) routes and stay well within Z1-2. In 6 weeks I moved my LT1 by 35 watts.
Joe Friel and Gordo Byrne talk a lot about this too. Friel thinks this is where e-bikes can help keep your rides Z1-2. Gordo recommends riding the trainer until you can get LT1 high enough to ride your terrain.
It is important to note that Coggan’s table your attached is over 25 years old. Since its publication, advancements in science, particularly in the areas of metabolic processes and FatMax, have occurred at a rapid pace.
The table primarily advocates for sweet spot training, a method that has been shown to be effective in endurance running by several Norwegian athletes, including Ingebrigtsen and Nordås. However, its effectiveness in cycling is not as pronounced.
If you are genuinely committed to improving your cycling performance, it is essential to seek guidance from a qualified coach, discuss your challenges with trusted professionals, and undergo proper testing in a lab rather than relying on Internet sources that may be easily misunderstood.
Hi Turbosnail, where’s the chart from?
Was the training hours the same for each modality?
I don’t think Coggan’s chart is advocating solely SS training, it’s just illustrating what to expect from working in each zone, nobody could train in the upper zones 6 days a week, week on week.
POL might suit someone with 15hrs a week to train, where focusing on SS might be better suited to someone with 6hrs.
Cheers!
That chart is the visual summary of this study.
It’s a great way to maximize your training efforts.
Turbosnail, can you draw any real conclusion considering the variation of training hrs?
It doesn’t state what happened to their Lactate Thresholds… it only states at 4mmol
Another factor is that some of the participants may have dropped high intensity and/or volume from their usual regime depending on what camp they were put in.
Personally i’m not in one camp or another…
Nothing to add/discuss to the above?
